


Right Answers

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Relationships, Established Relationship, F/F, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 19:03:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16203743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Chandler knows these questions all have right answers. There are right and wrong answers about everything in high school, in society. A right answer to the public is to wear plaid coats with shoulder pads, party late every time you get a chance, and hook up with guys. A wrong answer is to have yourself a girlfriend with a biting sense of humor and a morbid mind.Chandler has been getting more and more questions wrong these days.





	Right Answers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoseWithAllHerThorns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseWithAllHerThorns/gifts).



There is a new survey question every week. All four of them—Chandler, Veronica, and the two that don’t really matter—go around and ask everyone and get the list of answers. Afterwards, when Veronica and Chandler are alone, they like to answer the question themselves sometimes.

“What would you do if you won a thousand dollars in the lottery?” Chandler says.

Veronica smiles the same saccharine smile of half the girls they asked. “Of course I’d give it to charity.”

Chandler scoffs. “Oh, I thought you’d put it into savings.”

“That’s my second choice.”

Chandler rolls her eyes and slumps back on the couch. They’re at Chandler’s place because her parents are around less, though officially, to Duke and McNamara, Chandler is on a date with a mystery man and Veronica is studying.

“How about I buy a car?” Veronica says. “A nice, fancy one with leather upholstery so you won’t mind lying down in the backseat.”

She is just barely suppressing a smirk. Chandler smiles back. “Nice one.” She pulls Veronica over and sucks down on her lips.

* * *

 

Chandler knows these questions all have right answers. There are right and wrong answers about everything in high school, in society. A right answer to the public is to wear plaid coats with shoulder pads, party late every time you get a chance, and hook up with guys. A wrong answer is to have yourself a girlfriend with a biting sense of humor and a morbid mind. Chandler knows she is getting more and more answers wrong lately, but at least she balances the wrong ones with right ones. Her score on an exam currently would be about sixty percent, but no one knows most of the wrong answers she’s giving, so most people think she’s acing life.

Veronica is the only one who knows what lies between them. Heathers Duke and McNamara don’t even suspect. If they did, there’d be hell to catch. Duke at least would tear Chandler down in a minute, and McNamara would do the same, though perhaps with more carelessness than malice. It is surprising to Chandler that Veronica has never tried to tear her down, although she could do it easily, could have done it the first time Chandler draped an arm around her and leaned a little too close. Being the one to reveal Chandler as a dirty pervert would gain her social capital. But then, Veronica cares a little less about social capital and more about getting her own.

What she gets from Chandler satisfies her more than esteem, and Chandler is careful to keep things that way. Though that doesn’t mean she can’t play around.

“God, Heather. You’re a fucking tease,” Veronica curses as Chandler nips at her thighs, tantalizingly close to her groin but not quite there. “Cut it out.”

Chandler does cut it out, but instead of continuing up she leans back. “Oh, is Miss High and Mighty displeased?”

“Screw you, Heather,” Veronica says. She grabs at Chandler’s shoulders, probably intending to shove her face back down where it belongs, but Chandler dodges backwards with a laugh. She’s left glowering.

“I’ll do what I want when I want.”

Veronica forces a smile. “And what I want?”

Chandler tosses her hair. “You’re very self-centered, you know that?”

“Heather…”

“All right, I’ll be nice. Don’t be so easy to pick on.” Chandler kneels back down and goes back to her services. She finally touches her tongue to Veronica’s clit, and Veronica’s hands clench in her hair so hard it hurts.

Veronica is easily moved.

She’s not extremely talented at sex herself, though she does try. She’s a little too rushed, and she has little imagination. But Chandler never makes her complaints until the deed is done. That pisses Veronica off and sometimes sends her storming out, but Chandler can’t imagine being like Veronica, so far lowered as to beg. That’s something she’ll never do. And she knows Veronica likes that in a way. She likes Chandler being a demanding asshole who can control her in every way—during sex, at school, all the time. She likes being able to fight that control, but if it went away, if Chandler softened, she’d be disappointed. She wouldn’t see Chandler as the same person anymore.

There are right and wrong answers when it comes to Veronica. A right answer is treating her like a pet, but a favored one, inferior but still petted and praised. A right answer is making her feel special as compared to Duke and McNamara but always keeping her at an arm’s length. A wrong answer is letting her think that this relationship gives her power over Chandler, letting her think Chandler’s soft for her.

As long as Veronica still curses her out regularly and all her smiles are either smirks or a little bit fake, Chandler knows she’s getting all the answers right. She’s not sure what the consequences for a wrong answer would be, but thinking of it makes her uneasy.

* * *

 

“Would you rather people think you smart or pretty?”

It’s one of the more annoying survey questions of the year, making Chandler roll her eyes. Also, they have to substitute “handsome” or “hot” for the guys instead of “pretty”, and a couple times Chandler says pretty to a guy by accident and gets back sass. Goddamn. Chandler will take sass from a very select group of people and none of them are uptight nerds who think she’s mocking their masculinity.

“I’d rather both,” Veronica says later.

“You don’t get both,” Chandler says. “I mean, even in reality you don’t get both. Pretty, or smart. I’d take pretty. If guys think you’re smart, you probably aren’t.”

Veronica considers this for a minute. She takes out a cigarette. She has taken up occasional smoking recently—it’s hot but Chandler still scolds her for it, it’s not the kind of image their group tries to promote. She lights the cigarette while she considers and Chandler glares.

Then she blows smoke out of her mouth. “I want people to think I’m a fucking hurricane.”

Chandler snorts. “Good luck with that.”

* * *

 

Veronica understands how people are supposed to perceive them, what she is supposed to do and say, how she is supposed to look and act, and yet she’ll still balk. It’s an annoying quality of hers. She knows why they go to the parties. All the cool people go to the parties, and it teaches them how people act in college, helps them grow up, connects them to a reality they can’t get at school. Yet it seems that every time Chandler takes her to a party it ends with a fight. Sometimes over something meaningful, like Chandler giving her punch that turns out to be spiked without telling her. Sometimes over something as irrelevant as a boy.

“Why are you so pissed at me?” Chandler hisses. Veronica is storming away. She has been storming away for the past ten minutes, even though they’ve already passed the parking lot and are far down the road from where Chandler parked the car. She is being a stubborn idiot.

“I don’t know, Heather. I guess it’s pretty dumb. I’m sure most guys see their girlfriend making out with some college jerk and it’s no big.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not a guy, Veronica. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Veronica glances back with a sarcastic huff. “But if I was a guy I could? You’d let me?”

Chandler laughs. “What are you even talking about, Veronica? Obviously things between us aren’t… Look, do you expect me to go to parties and just sit on the sidelines? That’s not how any of this works.”

“You don’t even like kissing guys like that but you still do anything they tell you to. Why? If you’re such a big, tough woman, why?”

“I would not do…”

“You’re not scary, Heather,” Veronica says. “You’re not even cool.”

Chandler crosses her arms. “You talk big for a girl who doesn’t even have a ride home without me. And you better appreciate that, because I’ve been the fucking designated driver all evening, and it’s sucked. And why do you give a crap what I do? We’re not…” She gestures impatiently. “Come on. I guess we’ll have to go home now, you’ve made us look like idiots.”

She turns back, and after a moment, Veronica follows her. She should have known better than to follow Veronica in the first place. Veronica loves to make a scene, talk big. The best way to deal with her in this kind of a mood is to ignore her.

In the car she settles in next to Chandler before grabbing her face and kissing her hard. Chandler shoves her away. They’re still much too close to the party; someone might see. Later she acquiesces, lets Veronica take out her frustrations. People assume the bruises on her neck are from a guy. Some guys wolf whistle but that’s fine. It’s still an acknowledgment of what she is. A cool girl, a girl guys want and sometimes can have. That’s as much as she wanted from the party, anyway. That and some beer.

She thinks if Veronica had beer and weren’t such an uptight bitch, it would be just as good to stay at home.

* * *

 

“How do you want to die?”

The survey question this week is morbid. Veronica asks it while she runs a hand through Veronica’s hair. They’re on Veronica’s bed, it’s a weeknight, they’ve stayed up much too late and Chandler almost feels philosophical. She almost says the truth: that she’d be just as happy to die like this, head in Veronica’s lap and Veronica looking down at her playfully. She wouldn’t really mind.

“Bullet to the head,” she says. “It’s fast. All those people who said old age are losers.”

Veronica rolls her eyes. “Yeah, how stupid to want to stay alive a while longer.” But she still smiles, and Chandler knows she's given a right answer.


End file.
